


Sweet Little Moments

by residentdogenthusiast



Series: Twelve Months of Washette [1]
Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: (thats a nasty habit dont pick it up), Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M, Mild Angst, Mild Humor, Mild Hurt/Comfort, New Year's Eve, New Year's Fluff, Smoking, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, hand holding, lots of hand holding, tw Mention of Conversion Therapy, tw Mention of Homophobia, tw Mention of Mental Illness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-03
Updated: 2019-01-03
Packaged: 2019-10-03 07:06:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,631
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17279378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/residentdogenthusiast/pseuds/residentdogenthusiast
Summary: There were simpler ways to prove you loved someone—but George Washington has never been a simple man.[January]





	Sweet Little Moments

**Author's Note:**

> lot’s of inspo from Mariner’s Apartment Complex here, it fits this fic so well

Washington scans the faces of the semi-crowded house, eyes flitting from the digital clock on the wall counting down the time until midnight in bright neon red letters to the group of growingly inebriated people currently gathered in his living room. He hadn’t known how he and his partner had gotten swindled into hosting the New Year party at their home, but they had. Of course, Lafayette had never been the type of person to do _anything_ half assed; even if they hadn’t wanted to host the party in the first place─the liquor is well stocked and the decorations around the house simultaneously cheesy and tasteful. They had always been exceptionally good at party planning.

But they had vanished. He looks to the clock again. There are fifteen more minutes before midnight, which means Gilbert had chosen one of the least opportune times to make this surprise disappearance. It feels as though he had _just_ seen them just minutes ago, but he’d searched the house from top floor to basement and they were nowhere to be found.

“Has anyone seen Gilbert?” he asks, mostly to himself. Someone had sneakily cracked open a bottle of wine before it had even hit ten o’clock, and he thinks most of them are pleasantly tipsy by now. However, Hercules does look up from where he’d been intently watching the New York NYE special on television and furrow his brow─repeating the same room sweep that George had done before giving a lame shrug.

“They got a phone call,” Angelica says, taking a distracted sip from her beer bottle. When she looks up, her impassive face betrays the look of concern in her honey eyes. “I think they went outside.”

Washington furrows his brow just a little bit. It was a tad out of character for Lafayette to disappear for private phone calls, especially considering they themselves were far more interested in text messaging than calling anyways. He wonders what his partner could be so concerned about keeping secret that he felt the need to not just leave the room—but leave the _house_ to take a call.

Questioningly, he points in the direction of the backyard. When Angelica gives a nod of approval, he carefully steps over the bodies and legs on the floor—making his way through the maze of people until he can get through the kitchen to the tinted sliding glass doors that lead to the backyard. The second he slides the door open, the crisp winter air blows against his face and he shivers against it. Its still snowing outside, pure snowflakes falling to make a white blanket above his beloved—now dead for the winter—vegetable garden. He’s immediately greeted by his youngest dog, Tipsy, as the young pup jumps onto his thighs. The dog pants and whines for attention, having been outside in the doghouse since guests started arriving. Their dog houses were well insulated and kept warm in the winter—he’d built them himself—, but George supposes Tipsy simply missed the attention.

Distractedly scratching the terrier behind the ears, his eyes scan the backyard until he finally catches a glimpse of Gilbert. They’re sitting on the old wooden swing hung up on his tree, phone pressed against their ear and a lit cigarette between their glossy lips. Washington notices how they shiver against the chill, and shrugs himself out of his jacket before going over to them. He doesn’t say a word as he approaches, respectful of their conversation as he draped the jacket over their exposed shoulders.

“ _... oui, maman, mais tu dois comprendre—_ ” Gilbert cuts off their sentence in frustration, bring their cigarette back up to puff on it. The cherry burns bright for a moment then they’re exhaling the smoke through their nose. George settles into the swing beside him once he’s satisfied with the little protection the thin dinner jacket is providing against the cold, swiping the snow off of the worn old wood. The swing is damp and the ropes creak underneath his weight, but he pushes off a bit anyways.

They look over to him with tears watering their eyes and hold up a finger. He waves his hand in dismissal, scratching at Tipsy’s coat as he waits for them to finish their conversation. He can already tell—even if he doesn’t understand the rapid French they’re speaking in—that whatever they’re discussing, it was something deeply personal. It wasn’t a rare occasion for Gilbert to cry—they had always been an emotional person, and according to their friends, it was a trait they’d had since childhood. But these tears are not the usual tears that Washington can kiss or thumb away easily. There is a pain swimming in their hazel eyes that breaks his heart, and if they had a hand free, he would reach to hold it.

 _“Oui, Maman. Je suis désolé,”_ they pause, and exhale again. All the fight and life in their voice is gone, and they seem more exhausted than he’s ever seen them. The cigarette between their fingers is mostly burned out, and George can see them reaching for the pack before they even make the motion. Flicking the butt away into the snow, ruby red nails pull at the plastic on the carton until they surface with a fresh cigarette. The cigarette balances between pursed lips as shaking fingers search for a lighter. Washington surfaces with one from his pocket, cupping the flame up to their lips. “ _Je vais m'excuser auprès de lui. Oui. Je dois y aller, maman. Au revoir. Bonne année."_

Lafayette pulls the phone away from their face, jamming the end call button with their thumb before burying their face in their hands. The freshly lit teeters between their fingers, and Washington plucks it from their hands to take a drag of his own. The smoke filling his lungs is a familiar reprieve that he’d gotten used to over the years, and when he blows it out, there’s a satisfying plume before it dissipates into the air.

“Do you want to talk about it?” he asks, offering the cigarette back. Lafayette accepts, taking an exceptionally long drag. They’re silent for a long moment, simply sitting beside him and smoking. He begins to think that they _don’t_ want to talk about it. But then they shake their head and reach to scratch the scruff behind Tipsy’s ear.

“It is nothing, just my… my _bi yearly_ lecture. About not coming home for the holidays. About still being genderfluid. About still being gay. About still being in love with a man twice my age,” they swallow thickly, swiping at the tears falling over their cheeks. George takes their hand in his, lacing their fingers together so that he can kiss the back of their knuckles. “ _Dieu, je déteste ça. Je_ déteste _ça._ ”

He had discovered the truth about Lafayette’s family about four months into their current year and a half relationship. He had come from work to a woman looking strikingly like Lafayette with a toddler on her hip, demanding to know why they had fallen off of the face of the Earth. The two had quite the loud row in the middle of his front lawn over why he would not be returning to France in the near future, and George had found out that his partner was actually a _twin_.

He knew the general _gist_ of Lafayette’s family and why it was so hard for them to even speak to them; let alone have a relationship with them. Their father had forced them through several years worth of conversion therapy, the torment only ending when they had turned sixteen and had legally emancipated—along with their sister—from the man. Their mother had a personality disorder, and her alarmingly narcissistic behavior forced them to keep her at an arm's distance—even despite the fact that they’d had a close relationship in their childhood. And their sister… they were actually quite close to their sister, but the woman struggled to understand why they could not just get past their traumatic childhood and reconnect with their parents.

To see how tormented Gilbert is over this breaks his heart, and he wants nothing more but to wrap them up in his arms and kiss them until they can smile again. He settles for holding their hand, swinging lightly. The cold is starting to numb his hands, and he has to flex his free hand to get the blood circulating freely again. But he’d stay in the cold until his lips turned blue if it meant being there for Lafayette.

It always alarmed him, how he found new ways to surprise himself with his adoration for them.

“Why do you still take the calls, sweetheart? If they hurt you so,” he asks, barely noticing as Lafayette flicks the second cigarette into the snow. They snort, swiping again at their eyes.

“Because, George, at the end of the day… they’re my family. The _only_ family I have. And… and if anything happens, I need to be in their good graces to make sure I get a marked grave.” The words are bitter and stinging, and the joke falls flat on their glossed lips. It sounds more like they’re trying to convince themselves rather than George, but they’re failing miserably at both. The older of the says nothing, and the silence hangs in the air.

But then Washington swallows his hesitation and says, “But that isn’t true, is it, Gilbert? That they’re the only family you get. You got me for as long as you’ll have me. And you’ve got everyone in the house. And I think I’ve got enough dogs to give enough love for several lifetimes. Ain’t that right, Tipsy?”

The dogs ears perk up at the sound of his name, and he gives a bark of acknowledgement. Gilbert laughs, their laughter a gust of warmth in the chill of the evening. Tipsy, thinking that they’re about to play with him, jumps into their lap excitedly. He’s still a pup—small enough that even on the cramped swings, he can curl into Lafayette’s lap cozily. They run their hands along his fur, their nails finding his favorite spot just under his scruff and giving it a scratch. Tipsy’s tail wags happily in response.

“Nothing is forever,” Gilbert sighs, pausing to pick at the nail polish on their thumb. “Not even your blood family.”

“What do I have to do to prove it you? Prove that I’m willing to be whoever you need me to be for as long as you need me to be if it’ll make you happy?” Washington asks, and there’s a desperation that creeps into the edges of his voice that scares him. He hasn’t realized how badly he wanted to help heal the wounds his parents had left them with until he talked about it, but damn does his heart yearn to make it all go away. They laugh again, this time morose and sharp. It feels like they’re laughing at him. It stings a little bit.

“We’re gonna miss the New Year,” they say distractedly, patting Tipsy’s behind. The dog gives them a pitiful whine at having to move from his spot of comfort but when he realizes they’re getting up, he jumps into the snow and pads over to his doghouse to rest. Lafayette dusts off their lap, but there is hardly anything sticking to the tight leather fabric of their pants. They then extend their hand to George, and when he stubbornly doesn’t take it, Gilbert rolls their eyes. “Come on, _chéri_.”

Washington reluctantly relents. Though he wants Lafayette to believe him when he says that he’ll be around no matter what—even if they, god forbid, part ways—he knows that if he pushes the topic too far, it’ll be just like picking at the wound and they’ll get nowhere. Gilbert was not the type of person to allow themselves to be easily swayed by pretty words and good intent; which is really just a nice way of saying they’re the most stubborn person he’s ever met. He wants to argue with them, argue until they just relent and agree but it’ll do no good.

He accepts the hand again, the cold becoming too much for him to bear. Ever the down home Virginian, he had never grown accustomed to the freezing New York temperatures around the holidays—a white Christmas was a gorgeous sight to behold, but definitely not worth the accompanying troubles.

Washington wrapping a protective arm around Lafayette’s shoulders and pecking their temple, the two make their way back to the warmth of the house. It is a small struggle in the heeled boots they wear, but eventually they pull open the sliding doors and step back into the cozy warmth of the house. They’re both freezing, and they stop by the stove to warm their hands over it. Gilbert isn’t quite smiling again, though. George decides he needs to fix that.

They’re just about to step back into the living room when he pulls them back, arms encircling around their waist from behind. Almost by reflex, they lean into his hold and he places a gentle kiss on their shoulder blade. A small act of affection, but that’s all he needs. Just something to put their smile back where it belongs.  “I’m here, sweetheart.”

“I know. I appreciate you, George,” they respond, turning to kiss his cheek. There’s a small smile there, and he decides its better than nothing—gesturing for them to lead the way. They do, throwing on a much livelier persona for the company of their friends. He knows later they’ll pull aside the few they trust, the few that ask, and give them the real scoop. He knows they won’t bury this like they do so many other things. But right now, they need to be themselves for a second. Life of the party, cheerful, always smiling Lafayette.

Laurens makes a few lewd catcalls and hollers when the couple reappears in the living room, especially given that some of Laf’s makeup is smeared. Laughing in their usual airy way, they swat at their best friends arm and quickly assures the suddenly-grossed-out Margaret that nothing of an indecent manner had occured in their absence. Washington mutters under his breath that thirteen minutes wouldn’t be nearly enough time, as he takes the last remaining seat on the couch and Hercules snorts at the comment. Someone passes along a glass of pre-poured champagne—judging by the way he’s cradling the remnants of the green bottle between his legs, Hamilton’s doing—to him just as Lafayette settles themselves down comfortably in his lap.

“If they did fuck, it was their last quickie of the year. So congrats to them,” Alexander offers, raising his glass of champagne in a cheers before sipping at it. His annoyed wife uses the couch pillow she’s hugging to slap at his chest, lecturing about his immaturity and crassness. “Oh, Eliza, like we don’t fuck!”

“Alexander, please,” she cries in exasperation, shooting him a withering look. George watches the exchange with amused eyes. “I’d rather not have my sisters hear about my sex life!”

“My New Year’s resolution is to punch Alexander in the face every time he talks about his or anyone else’s sex life,” Hercules says, his voice seemingly only half-joking.

 _“That’s_ something I can get behind,” Thomas agrees, and the two reach across Angelica to high-five. The woman rolls her eyes at the two men, but there is a smile tugging at her lips that says these antics amuse her just as much as they do anyone else.

“Well. Besides my sister-in-law, right, Thomas?” Alexander snickers into his glass, and groans in pain when an empty beer bottle flies into his stomach. “ _Herc_!”

“I can start working on my resolution early,” the man says, shrugging off the cry of indignance with ease.

“Hush! Fifty seconds!” Angelica shouts over the din of the growing unrest, and Washington squeezes Lafayette closer to his chest. They turn their head to look at him, peering at him through their long eyelashes in that way that managed to be both cute and sexy at the same time. The two of them were beginning to develop one of those relationships where the words could go unsaid, they didn’t need vocalization to know and feel what was going through the other’s mind. And the look in their honey brown eyes is so sweet that his heart begins to swell. He would gamble that he knows the exact words running through their mind—and that the two of them were thinking the very same thing.

“Twenty seconds!”

This affection had taken some time to get used to, especially on such a public forum. He hadn’t had any serious romance since his divorce over a decade ago, and hesitance had plagued the early days of their relationship. But now he welcomes it openly, smiling so hard that his cheeks begin to burn. Even in front of the nearly dozen other people in the room. Simply being with Lafayette in this way… it had a magical effect on him. It dawns on him that he can’t remember ever feeling happier.

**_Ten._ **

Washington pulls their hand into his, locking their fingers together in that familiar way. A small act, but with a greater meaning.

**_Nine._ **

Lafayette giggles, this time being the one to bring their entwined fingers up to their glossed lips. They leave a lip print on his skin.

**_Eight._ **

He pushes thoughts of their horrid family, the awful thing they had almost let their parents turn this night into, out of his mind.

**_Seven._ **

The striking thought that he wants to spend every New Year with them hits him like a wave.

**_Six._ **

“I love you, Gilbert.”

**_Five._ **

“I love you, too, George.”

**_Four._ **

The words tumble out of his mouth before he can stop them, and he doesn’t even realize the weight of what he’s saying until its said.

**_Three._ **

“Marry me.”

**_Two._ **

_“What?”_

**_One._ **

“Happy New Year!”

George closes the space between them before either of them have the chance to get another word out, capturing their lips in his. There is an almost panicked franticness to the kiss at first, because Washington knows that he’d rather kiss them than hear the crushing ‘no’ that would inevitably come. And as much as it would break his soul to hear them reject the hastily made proposal, he wouldn’t blame them if they couldn’t accept. After all, he hadn’t even bought an engagement ring─he hadn’t even been thinking of proposing until the moment he had spluttered out the words. But the recognition that he wouldn’t mind being called Lafayette’s husband─wouldn’t mind spending the rest of his days showing them what a family truly could be─had been just as sudden and unexpected as the proposal itself.

All he knew was that if Gilbert thought nothing was forever, he wanted to prove them wrong.

But the frenzy of the kiss melts into something more fitting for their relationship. He begins to not care what their response is. Just as long as they would be here with him in these moments, for as long as they would have each other, he would be happy. Lafayette is the first one to close the little space between them, hands coming up to cup the sides of his face as they move from sitting across his lap to straddling it. They settle over his thighs like they belong there, and they kiss him like they do, too.  Their perfume is a comfort as it rolls off of their tight black top, filling George’s nose with a sense of comforting familiarity.

He sucks in sharp air through his teeth when they trail the pads of their fingers down the side of his face, half expecting the rejection to come next—and at peace with it if it does. But their voice is honey sweet when they breathlessly pull away from the kiss to shakily whisper, _“Oui, bien sûr, mon amour. Bien sûr. Oui._ Yes, yes, _dieu_ , _yes_.”

“I love you, sweetheart, _I love you,_ ” he breathes back almost instantaneously, the surprise at their acceptance dissipating almost as soon as it comes. He takes their hands from his face to hold them tightly in his, alternating between whispering sweet words of endearment and affection, and peppering their hands and lips with saccharine kisses.

Neither of them want to return to reality—and who could blame them? Washington has never been a particularly stupid man; he knows that this proposal would only further complicate things with his partners parents, and could even make things a little harder for their relationship in the long run. Just as he knows that a few moments of shared euphoria and happiness could not possibly begin to fix all the pain that Lafayette was going through with his family. Once the moment passes, and the edges of reality begin to seep into these few precious moments of suspended belief, they will have a _lot_ to discuss.

But still, his grin refuses to leave his lips and his heart refuses to stop fluttering. When it comes to Gilbert de Lafayette, he doubts it ever will.

* * *

**Translations**

_Oui, maman, mais tu dois comprendre…_ — Yes, Mom, but you have to understand…

 _Oui, Maman. Je suis désolé. Je vais m'excuser auprès de lui. Oui. Je dois y aller, maman. Au revoir. Bonne année._ — Yes, Mom. I’m sorry. I will apologize to him. Yes. I have to go, mom. Goodbye. Happy New Year.

 _Dieu, je déteste ça. Je déteste ça._ — God, I hate this. I hate this.

 _Oui, bien sûr, mon amour. Bien sûr. Oui._ — Yes, of course, my love. Of course. Yes.

**Author's Note:**

> i am such a sucker for NYE proposals ooooh my god
> 
> hurriedly proposing during the countdown? with no planning? thats the GOOD SHIT
> 
> but also proposals dont magically fix shitty homophobic families and the emotional damage they can cause i do not recommend trying this remedy at home


End file.
